Jess Walter - The Zero

“A FORMALITY,” said a woman in her fifties, tall and professional, staring over the rims of stylish glasses up at Remy. She sat at a wide desk, next to a rooster-haired man roughing up his nose with a wet handkerchief.

“There are no right answers,” the man said. “Relax.”

The woman asked, “Chronic back pain?”

“What?” Remy asked.

“Just to get the paperwork flowing,” the tall woman said. “A formality. We just have to check a box.”

The man asked, “Chronic back pain?”

Remy looked around the room. There was a poster on the wall behind him showing a cartoon man with a push broom through his head like an arrow and the caption: Industrial Accidents Are Nothing To Laugh At . Remy leaned forward. “My back is fine,” he said. “I mean, if I need anything, I guess it’s some kind of counselor. See, I’m having some trouble… focusing. There are these gaps. I lose track of things.”

They stared at him.

“And my eyes… my eyes are flaking apart. Macular degeneration and vitreous detachment. I see flashers and floaters.”

A few seconds passed. Remy laughed nervously. “My son’s been telling everyone that I’m dead.”

They stared.

“And I… I drink a lot. Most days, I think. And… uh…” He rubbed his eyes. “I shot myself in the head. But I think that was an accident. Or… maybe a joke.”

They stared.

“But… you know… I’m fine.”

They stared.

“Well… except for the gaps, obviously.”

After a moment, the man chewed his pen and looked down at the file, running his finger down a list of some kind. “Chronic back pain,” he said.

“I WATCH a fair amount of television, Mr. Remy,” said the nervous woman with a silver skunk streak in her black hair. She glanced over at a set in the corner of her small apartment. Remy looked from the woman to her TV. On the screen, a man in coveralls was holding a piece of wood against a lathe. The sound was turned down. The skunk woman continued: “I haven’t turned off my TV since it happened. I was glued to the news coverage for the first few days. I even turned the TV so I could see it from the bathroom. I ordered out every meal and just went from channel to channel, watching it from different angles, listening to the newscasters and the public officials. Then, just like that, a few days ago I saw the first thing on TV that wasn’t news coverage. It was four in the morning.” The woman took a drag from her cigarette. “It was an infomercial. For a psychic. You know, that Jamaican woman with dreadlocks who tells people what’s in their future? Everyone’s either going to find a new job or fall in love, right? No one’s going to get cancer or fall down a well shaft. No one’s going to have a day just like the day before, lonely and sad, watching TV and ordering takeout. No one’s going to be burned to death on the eightieth floor of a building. It’s all new jobs and hunky new boyfriends. I suppose there was part of me that still hadn’t given up on March coming back – but I’m watching this psychic and she’s saying she’ll read your future for fifty bucks and they’re showing these people reconciling with their mothers or falling in love or getting promotions at work and it just hit me that I was never going to see March again. And I just lost it. I yelled at this TV psychic: Okay motherfucker! Where the hell were you? ”

Remy shifted. He looked down at his palm-sized notebook. Written on the page in his handwriting was a series of fragmentary notes: the name Ann Rogers, an address on the Upper East Side, the words neighbor and family money . Remy looked around the apartment, a simple postwar studio. She was stick-thin, with long, black hair and that perfect gray stripe. She was wearing baggy pajamas. She had two cigarettes going, one pinched between her long, manicured fingers, another smoldering in the ashtray.

Below Ann Rogers and neighbor was a short list of abbreviated questions, also in Remy’s handwriting. He looked at the first one: That morning? “That morning,” he said.

“That morning?” Ann Rogers took a deep breath and sighed. “That morning, March and I went off to work. Like any other day. We walked to the subway station together. It was… six-thirty. We got a bagel at the World Coffee place on Lex. She had a cappuccino. I don’t drink caffeine, myself.” Ann Rogers set one cigarette down and picked up the other one.

Remy stared at the notebook before him. Should he be writing any of this down? That Ann Rogers doesn’t like caffeine? That she has a streak in her hair? He had the sense that any detail would become important if he wrote it down, that its importance would be determined by the record he kept.

“March and I hit it off right away, right after she moved into the building… oh… I don’t know, almost a year ago.” Ann Rogers ran her hand over her hair. “We’d meet in the hallway every day on our way to work. Sometimes we shared a cab. Or we’d walk to the subway together. We both rode downtown, although she went twice as far as me. It was amazing, really. We never said, Hey, let’s meet at this time or let’s meet at that time. It just happened. I’d step outside my apartment to get something to eat and March would be there, and she’d be going out to eat at the exact same time. It was amazing, if you think about it.”

Remy thought about it. “I guess so.”

Ann Rogers shrugged. “Anyway, that particular day, we caught our train, sat next to each other. We talked about the weather, our weekends, and then we got to the Union Square station and I got off. And that was it. I imagine she kept going downtown.”

The second question read: Unusual?

“Anything,” Remy said, “unusual about that day?”

“Hmm. Let me see. Oh, you know what. There was this one thing. About three thousand people died. Yeah. Including my best friend. And I haven’t been able to leave my fucking apartment or turn off my fucking TV since then. But otherwise, no, I’d say it was just like every other peachy fucking day.”

“No, I’m sorry, I…” Remy looked down. “I guess what I mean is… that morning. There was nothing unusual about that morning? Before? She didn’t say anything before…”

“Oh, sorry. Hmm. Let me think. Oh yeah, now that you mention it, she did say that she had a bad feeling she was going to burn to death in an inferno.”

Remy shifted in his chair. “Look, I didn’t mean to upset you, Ms. Rogers.”

Ann Rogers stared at him. Flat.

Remy looked back at his notes. Question three: Seeing anyone? He took a breath. “Do you know if she was seeing anyone?”

“Seeing?”

“Romantically.”

“Who did she fuck? Is that what you’re asking me, Mr. Remy? Who did March fuck? Is that what you’re asking?”

“Look, Ms. Rogers, I-”

“You want to know who banged my neighbor?”

“I guess…”

“Then why don’t you just ask that, you fucking pervert?”

“I did.”

“No, you didn’t. You asked if she was seeing someone. I’m seeing you right now, but you’re not fucking me. Or are you? Are you fucking me, Mr. Remy? Is this as good as it gets with you?”

“Look, I…”

“Do you want me to tell you who she saw or who she fucked?”

“The latter, I guess.”

“The latter? What’s the matter with you? Say it. Say it, you piece of shit. Say, Excuse me Ms. Rogers, but who did your neighbor fuck? ”

“Who did your neighbor fuck?”

“Oh my God! None of your business, you fucking pervert.”

Remy felt dizzy. “Look, I don’t know how this has gotten so-”

“What makes you think I would even know that? We were neighbors. I can tell you she didn’t fuck me. Does that help? You want a full list of all the people who haven’t fucked me? Is that what you want? Because I’ll get some paper and get started.”